Sanctuary (17 page)

Thorn wrenched Marcus from Brandon’s body and pulled him into the ether of the spirit world, leaving Virgil’s body in the process. They scuffled for a moment before breaking apart to regain their bearings. Thousands of demons regarded them from outside the windows.

Thorn bellowed in anger at his old foe, and at the Judge who’d betrayed him. The officers’ deaths had enraged Thorn, which surprised him, since he didn’t even know them. Since when had all human life become so valuable to him? He grasped his rage, kindled it. It helped him quell his fear of Marcus.

Crystal and Cole lingered at the door to the master bedroom, so Thorn moved to a spot between them and Marcus, whose gaunt form prowled the shadows near the balcony. “You’re crazy for coming in here after me,” Thorn said. It was true: had their roles been reversed, Thorn would certainly have decided that following Marcus into a Sanctuary was too great of a risk, and would have let the vengeful army dispatch his opponent instead.

Marcus cradled his injured head and grimaced. “You’re running around trying to save doomed humans, hoping you can undo your ancient choice to join the revolt against the Enemy, and you’re telling me
I’m
crazy?”

“Yes. Because you have to be the big dog, the one leading the charge. All the humans, all of your own kind who’ve had to die for your obsessive grievance with me… They’re all just collateral damage to you.”

“It’s why I am great and you’ve been reduced to nothing.”

Thorn imagined his own past self, pressing the same point in countless arguments.
Power is power, and nothing else matters.
“We all claim greatness, but has any demon ever truly been the greatest?” Thorn asked.

“Greatest, no; but great, yes. Just because a game is unwinnable doesn’t mean it’s not worth playing.”

“To what end?”

“Yours.” Changing the subject, Marcus nodded toward the Judge, cowering in a corner of the kitchen, afraid to look at either of them. “I planned to kill you in here, in this Sanctuary, where no Judge would know—but even your own Judge agrees with me now. The time has come to put you down.”

“And reign over anarchy on Earth?” Thorn said, changing the subject back to the ultimate futility of Marcus’s actions.

Marcus smirked. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

“Oh, wake up. Can’t you see something else is going on here? What if there’s a path to defection here?” To so blatantly reveal that he was breaking the Third Rule felt like blasphemy to Thorn, especially in front of the Judge—but right now it was particularly important for the Judge to hear Thorn’s theory. So he tried to quell the ages of conditioning that led to his hesitancy to speak of such matters. “Marcus, what if Xeres’s journey to a Sanctuary was what led to him becoming an angel? You could search in here with me. We could find a way—”

“Xeres is dead.”

No he’s not, but I know I can’t convince you of that.
“You must admit it’s strange that the Sanctuary operates by different laws than Earth’s. Why can we control dead bodies here? Why do we have so much more influence over human minds?”

“Because the Enemy never expected we’d discover the Sanctuaries. In His foolishness, He neglected to build safeguards against us.”

“Ah, yes. The blind crusade against the Enemy. We despise Him so much after all this time because… why?”

Marcus drifted into the light, the scowl on his face sharp enough to cut through spirit and flesh alike. “Everyone knows why. He loathes us, and wants us all in Hell.”

“Then why aren’t we in Hell?”

“Because we are stronger than Him.”

Unbelievable.
Thorn shook his own head in scorn. “What is it like to go through life never questioning anything?”

“Why question something if you already know that it’s true?”

“Does knowing the truth make you feel better than everyone else?”

“Try it sometime, Thorn. It’s pleasant.”

“It’s pleasant for you. For now. But put yourself in the humans’ place.”

“That’s what you’ve done, is it?”

“Goddammit, yes. They’re not collateral damage. They don’t deserve to die just because of who created them. They have minds and ambitions and feelings and choices, just like us.”

“The Enemy never let us have choices! One skeptical word against His authority and we were doomed for eternity.”

Thorn remembered that initial feeling of doom well, and bitterly. Most demons had quickly grown disappointed with the double-edged freedom their actions had wrought. After the fall from Heaven, they were finally masters of their own destiny—but what a bleak destiny. Most of them still believed what their Father had told them: that they had no free will, that an angel was either obedient or dysfunctional, with no in-between. They’d been told they were evil… so evil they became. And they took their frustrations out on each other, and on humanity.

The demons had been like children then, with little understanding of the Enemy and no knowledge of His universe other than what He’d told them. It had taken Thorn until very recently—just a few hundred years ago—to realize their idiocy. They had chosen to rebel, so of course they had free will; it was only God’s unnecessary dichotomy that had forced them to choose between black and white. And these last few months, Thorn had become increasingly troubled by the fact that even in the present day, many demons continued to believe in their own lack of agency. It was such an obvious lie, yet it was easier to stomach than the hard truth: that they could
still
choose to be good, but that doing so would not cause them to be welcomed back into Heaven—and that they’d be slain by their peers besides. Any choice other than the demonic path would send one to a tragic end, so the illusion of no free will remained strong.

Thorn realized that over the course of his argument with Marcus, he’d floated forward, and now hovered mere feet from his old enemy. They drifted within striking distance of each other, but neither moved to attack. So Thorn pressed on. “Marcus, I’m not trying to save myself by undoing my actions against God. I know that would be futile. I’m doing this to save the humans.” Thorn had known from the beginning that he’d likely die in here, but as long as even one of the humans lived, at least his death would have some meaning.

Marcus huffed, and seemed to take Thorn’s words as a challenge. “You could kill them yourself, you know. Do it in front of the other demons. You can’t save your life, but at least you can save your legacy.”

Thorn shook his head. “All this killing, all this destruction… it’s not our only option anymore. I found another choice.”

“Suicide is not a choice.”

“It’s not suicide. It’s sacrifice.”

Thorn and Marcus stood face to face. Even after this quarrel, Thorn guessed that Marcus understood his actions no more than Thorn understood Marcus’s. All he saw in Marcus was myopia, blindness. What did Marcus see in him? Vanity? Insanity?

“Follow me,” Marcus said, and moved around Thorn, toward Crystal and Cole. When Thorn hesitated, Marcus tried to reassure him. “I won’t hurt them. Not yet. I want to show you something. You too, Judge.”

The Judge rose, sulking, then trailed Thorn and Marcus at a distance.
What a fool I was for trusting him. Was I really so desperate for camaraderie?

As Marcus passed Cole on his way into the master bedroom, he casually touched the young entrepreneur’s mind.

Crystal trembled at the brutal violence she’d just witnessed. Virgil’s and Brandon’s bodies hadn’t moved for over two minutes—maybe they were really dead this time.
Are we still safe in here? Should we run for it? What happened to Virgil?
The thought that their only protection had vanished crept into her mind with tendrils of dread.

“Are they dead?” Cole asked.

“I don’t know.” The bodies seemed dead and vacant to Crystal. “Do you think—” She looked at Cole… and saw a familiar vacant expression in his eyes. “No. No, not again. Hey, Cole. Cole!”

But Cole couldn’t hear her. He turned around, zombielike, and lumbered down the hall toward his bathroom. Crystal guardedly followed him.

Wherever Marcus was leading him and Cole, Thorn knew that this would be his last chance tonight to persuade his foe. “Would you like to know what changed my mind?” Thorn asked. Marcus said nothing, so Thorn continued. “When I first arrived in the Sanctuary, just nine hours ago, I considered killing the humans before you all arrived. I would have been free. But then I looked in a mirror.

“All I’ve ever seen in mirrors is empty space. But this time I saw a man. I saw myself. And then I touched the mirror with my own fingers. I felt it. I waved to the security guard as he passed, and he saw me. I was
human
, Marcus.” An earnest wish, suddenly granted. Confusion had surged through Thorn at this apparent act of God (for what else could it have been?). As he’d gazed down at the living tissue that was both part of and separate from him, Thorn had seen how such an event could awaken the ancient desire for freedom in any demon—the same need for independence that had fueled demonkind’s rebellion in the first place. But for Thorn, this new body had added fuel to the flame of his yearning to be free from demonkind and its customs. In his new human body, he wondered: Did he have free will, as much as the humans did? Did he have choice? Or was it just some cruel trick?

Regardless, Thorn had faced a dilemma. Using his new body to kill the humans and prove his wickedness to the Judge would have let him keep his life as a demon on Earth, but would have compromised his newfound morality. Yet he dared not use the body to
aid
the humans, for then he’d be just as susceptible to demonic attack as they were. That left him only one choice: to abandon the body. Or so he’d told himself. But if he was being honest, the truth was that the idea of becoming human had terrified him, despite the fact that he’d wanted it for so long.

So Thorn, as a human, had hopped into a dumpster outside the condo and lit the garbage aflame, then willed his spirit out of his body. As soon as he left it, his body’s arms and legs had tumbled into a heap in the midst of the other trash. But the heart kept beating. Even without its spirit, the body had continued living. Until the flames reached it, and it burned. Thorn hadn’t even thought about how useful the body, if dead, might have been later tonight. He’d just wanted it gone. He didn’t deserve it.

On Earth, Thorn had wondered why so many demons were afraid of Sanctuaries. And now that he’d seen one for himself—and one full of demons at that—the place was like a violent free-for-all. Any demon with half a brain could wreak enough destruction here to earn him glory for decades. To deprive an entire life of its purpose before it was even born… that was surely a major achievement. Back when Thorn was as depraved as his peers, he’d have traveled to a Sanctuary in a heartbeat, if only he had known that carnage here came so easily.

So why had the word not spread? Why didn’t demons while away their days killing people in Sanctuaries? Before tonight, Thorn thought it had to do with the occasional demon who never returned from a Sanctuary, or the mysterious and crippling melancholy of many others who did, like Xeres. Most who returned never spoke of their experiences—what had happened to them remained a mystery—and so other demons assumed the worst. But now Thorn knew the truth of why they wouldn’t talk. Those demons had tasted humanity in their respective Sanctuaries, and it had shaken their views of the world.

“You were human?” Marcus threw Thorn an incredulous glance as they drifted past Cole’s closet. “How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t I become a human? Or any of the demons outside?”

“I don’t know.”

“You seem desperate to convince me of your fanciful view of the world, Thorn, but not too knowledgeable about your own opinions.”

I should’ve known he’d think me mad.
Thorn hoped against all odds that Marcus would at least listen to a plea for the humans. “Yes, I’m crazy. I’m renegade. I deserve to die. So take me, and let the humans live.”

Marcus merely laughed a little: barely an exhale. No doubt he or the Africans would murder Crystal and Cole as soon as Thorn was dead. Or perhaps sooner.

“I thought about it, you know,” Thorn said. “Killing the humans. I stood over Crystal as she slept. Felt the child inside her. It was so easy to put her in a trance, lead her downstairs, to the pool, underwater. I exposed her to all the glorious distractions, and she was oblivious that she was drowning. But then I looked into her eyes, and I saw… I saw…”

Amy.

“I saw a mind that could be equal to my own, in another life. I couldn’t go through with it. I took her back upstairs and sent her off to sleep.”

“Because you’re weak.”

“Because unlike you, I realized that I don’t need God’s approval in order to be good. So what if He won’t forgive us? So what if He wants to banish us to Hell? He’s not the only source of goodness in the universe. You, and me, and the army outside—we can choose what’s right out of our own free will.”

“You’re psychotic.”

“Yeah, I said it. Free will. I think we have it. I think we’ve had it all along, no matter what our beloved Heavenly Father tells us. And I’m through with letting ancient and outdated spite for God get in the way of my own damn conscience. Fuck Him. Fuck you. I’m gonna do what’s right.”

Thorn hadn’t expected to grow so agitated. His lack of composure had likely heightened Marcus’s condescending view of him, but regardless, he’d said what he’d needed to say. He calmed himself and looked away, refusing further eye contact with the brute.

They rounded a corner into the master bathroom. Despite dim lights in the ceiling, its walls were lit mostly from beneath. At the far end of the room rested a large bathtub. Thorn followed Marcus toward it, feeling both anger and pity toward him for remaining so unaffected by his pleas.

Marcus tapped at the tub’s faucet handle. His hand did not pass through it, but neither would the handle budge. Whatever Marcus had planned, Thorn guessed this was his final shot at reasoning with him. Pity won out over anger and fear as Thorn tried one last time to reach out to this demon who he’d once called his brother.